Have It Your Way
by CaffieneKitty
Summary: Learning solely by observation does not always provide the best results. Missing scene for 5.14, so SPOILERS. Kind of silly.


**Warnings/Rating:** SPOILERS FOR 5.14, GEN, PG.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Just for fun.

**Characters:** Castiel (and Jimmy, kind of)

**Summary:** Learning solely by observation does not always provide the best results.

**A/N:** Missing scene for 5.14 of which I'm sure there are several variations out there. Mildly crackish. Based roughly on something I did when I was five.

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**Have It Your Way**  
by CaffieneKitty

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Castiel stood staring at the plastic clown head, wondering if he was doing something wrong. The clown head stared back, voiceless.

Jimmy's need for burgers was alarming. Castiel was unsure what it meant yet; he couldn't think clearly. If he could acquire hamburgers it would end this craving and allow him to think. He hoped.

The clown was still not speaking to him. The clown always spoke to Dean.

When the craving had come upon him, he'd analyzed the ways in which Dean and Sam acquired hamburgers. They went into small restaurants and bars, which took a minimum of ten minutes between stating a desire for a hamburger and the arrival of a hamburger, often much longer when including the time it took for someone to come and write down the request. Speaking to the clown meant a hamburger within less than two minutes. Clearly the clown had superior hamburger access.

Castiel reviewed what he had just thought and frowned at the concept that he desired anything, and that he was concerned with a period of time shorter than eternity. The passing thought that speaking to this clown might constitute idolatry also bothered him, but that concern and the additional thought that perhaps there was something about the hamburger acquisition process he was not interpreting correctly was being washed out by Jimmy's need.

He knew the clown was like the cellphone Dean had given him; it transmitted a voice from the people at the window nearby, but he was unsure of the purpose of such a short range transmission. Castiel presumed the intercession of the clown had some ritual significance. Speaking to the clown was the primary stage of expedient hamburger acquisition, and yet it would not speak to him.

A vehicle drove up to him and honked. The driver stuck his head out his window. "Hey, buddy! Get your ass outta the drive-thru lane!"

Castiel looked at the large man behind the wheel of the equally large vehicle. "I am waiting to speak to the clown."

The man's laugh was large as well. "Are you high?"

Castiel didn't answer and turned back to the clown. It's joyous expression had not changed while he had been distracted. It was an inanimate object though, and not meant to change over a short period of time. It only spoke and took orders.

The large man had retreated back into his vehicle and was conversing with the young woman in the passenger seat, who was laughing as well.

"Uh, hi," said the clown. "Can I help you?"

_At last._ "Yes. I require hamburgers."

"Um. You should really come inside if you want to order."

Castiel frowned. "This is the fastest manner of acquiring hamburgers I have observed. One speaks one's need for hamburgers to you, then one moves to the window and receives hamburgers. Is this not correct?"

"Well, yeah. I mean no. I uh... It's just usually people have a car when they go through the drive-thru."

Castiel stared at the clown. "Do you wish me to acquire a vehicle?"

"Uh... lemme ask the manager."

The clown fell silent. The strange empty feeling inside was growing, and Jimmy was miserable. Castiel looked back at the large laughing man and his female companion and wondered if he might borrow their vehicle to appease the clown.

This process didn't seem nearly as complicated when Dean and Sam did it.

The clown spoke again with a different voice. "Hi, sir. Are you feeling all right today?"

"I require hamburgers."

"We got lots of hamburgers, why don't you come on inside, we'll get you fixed up!"

"Dean does not go inside." Castiel frowned, frustrated at his inability to complete the basic ritual of accessing hamburgers via clown.

"Who's Dean?"

"Dean is my friend. He speaks to clowns and is given hamburgers at the window." Castiel thought there was something inaccurate about the statement and added, "Sam doesn't speak to clowns as often, but he is my friend too."

Something was still not right about the statement, but the physical demands his vessel was making were too much of a distraction to determine what.

The clown's voice became muffled. "...just a simple-minded..."

"I'm sorry," said Castiel to the clown. "I didn't hear what you said." Behind him, the man in the vehicle guffawed; the no-longer-laughing woman in the passenger seat slapped his shoulder.

The clown's voice had changed back to the earlier, lighter tone. "That's okay, sweetie. Do you have money for hamburgers?"

Castiel touched a flat plastic object in his pocket. "Dean gave me a card to use in case I need money." Dean had said it was for emergencies, but since the depth of Jimmy's craving for hamburgers was rendering Castiel unable to think, this constituted an emergency.

"Okay, sweetie, what can I get for you?"

Castiel tried to assess Jimmy's requirements and was met with a wave of blind howling want. He swallowed. "Five large hamburgers?"

"You sure about that?"

"Perhaps six?"

"...Are they all for you?"

"No," Castiel said, feeling Jimmy's misery. "I'm sharing them."

"Okay, honey, just come on down to the window, we'll get you some hamburgers."

Castiel turned and walked along the short lane toward the window. Behind him, the laughing man moved his vehicle up to speak with the clown.

Humans had some very strange rituals.

- - -  
(that's all)


End file.
